3m Innovative Properties Company

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Yasha Yi

Terry Lee Smith

Barry J Koch

Lionel Cooper Kimerling

Chunmei Guo

Xiaoman Duan

Michael Albert Haase

Shoji Akiyama

Catherine A Leatherdale

Zhaohui Yang

Jun-Ying Zhang

Kazumi Wada

Jurgen Michel

Luca Dal Negro

Victor Trinh Nguyen

Jae Hyung Yi

Lirong Zeng

A method for making a waveguide comprises (a) providing a waveguide structure comprising a substrate (), a lower cladding () layer on the substrate, and a core layer () comprising silicon nitride, amorphous silicon, or amorphous silicon-germanium alloy on the lower cladding layer; (b) patterning the core layer; and (c) annealing () the waveguide structure.

Method for making optical waveguides

A stack of semiconductor layers forms a re-emitting semiconductor construction (RSC). The stack includes an active region that converts light at a first wavelength to light at a second wavelength, the active region including at least one potential well. The stack also includes an inactive region extending from an outer surface of the stack to the active region. Depressions are formed in the stack that extend from the outer surface into the inactive region. An average depression depth is at least 50% of a thickness of the inactive region or at least 50% of a nearest potential well distance. The depressions may have at least a 40% packing density in plan view. The depressions may also have a substantial portion of their projected surface area associated with obliquely inclined surfaces.

Re-emitting semiconductor construction with enhanced extraction efficiency

A method and system are disclosed for detecting the presence of a perturbation of a microresonator including the step of exciting at least first and second resonant guided optical modes of a microresonator with a light source that is in optical communication with the microresonator. The method further includes inducing a first frequency shift in the first resonant guided optical mode and a second frequency shift in the second resonant guided optical mode, wherein the second frequency shift can be zero. Another step of the method is comparing the first frequency shift and the second frequency shift.

Integrated optical disk resonator

An optical sensing system and method are disclosed. The optical sensing system includes one or more bus waveguides. A first bus waveguide includes an input port that is in optical communication with a light source. The system further includes a microresonator optically coupled to the bus waveguides and an optical scattering center configured for alteration of a strength of optical coupling between the optical scattering center and the microresonator. In addition, the system includes a detector in optical communication one of the bus waveguides or the microresonator.

Optical sensing device

An optical sensing system and method of using it includes a light source and a first bus waveguide having an input port that is in optical communication with the light source. The system further includes a microresonator configured so that the light source excites at least first and second resonant guided optical modes of the microresonator. The microresonator includes a first location on a surface of a core of the microresonator where a field intensity of the first mode is greater than a field intensity of the second mode. The microresonator core has a first cladding at the first location. The microresonator also has a second location on a surface of the core of the microresonator where a field intensity of the first mode is less than or equal to a field intensity of the second mode, the microresonator core having a second cladding at the second location. The first cladding is different than the second cladding.

Optical sensing devices and methods

An optical device and a sensor system incorporating same are disclosed. The optical device includes a microresonator that has a core with input and output ports. The output port is different than the input port. The optical device further includes first and second optical waveguides. Each optical waveguide has a core with input and output faces. The output face of the core of the first optical waveguide physically contacts the input port of the core of the microresonator. The input face of the core of the second optical waveguide physically contacts the output port of the core of the microresonator.

Optical microresonator

An optical sensing system and method is disclosed. In one embodiment, a method of detecting a scattering center includes the step of providing an optical sensing system including a light source, one or more bus waveguides where a first bus waveguide has an input port that is in optical communication with the light source, a microresonator optically coupled to the one or more bus waveguides, and a scattering center which is capable of optically coupling to the microresonator. The method further includes the steps of exciting at least a first resonant guided optical mode of the microresonator with the light source, altering a strength of optical coupling between the scattering center and the microresonator to induce a change in optical scattering between the first mode and at least a second guided optical mode of the microresonator, and detecting a change in transfer of energy from the first mode to the second mode.

Optical sensing methods

An optical microresonator system and a sensor system incorporating same are disclosed. The optical microresonator system includes an optical waveguide and an optical microcavity that is optically coupled to the optical waveguide. The microcavity is capable of supporting primarily one or more resonant modes. The optical microresonator system further includes an optical microresonator that is optically coupled to the microcavity and is capable of supporting a resonant mode.

A solar cell includes a photoactive region that receives light. A photonic crystal is coupled to the photoactive region, wherein the photonic crystal comprises a distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) for trapping the light.

Light trapping in thin film solar cells using textured photonic crystal

A fabrication method and materials produce high quality aperiodic photonic structures. Light emission can be activated by thermal annealing post growth treatments when thin film layers of SiOand SiNor Si-rich oxide are used. From these aperiodic structures, that can be obtained in different vertical and planar device geometries, the presence of aperiodic order in a photonic device provides strong group velocity reduction (slow photons), enhanced light-matter interaction, light emission enhancement, gain enhancement, and/or nonlinear optical properties enhancement.

CMOS-compatible light emitting aperiodic photonic structures

A waveguide structure includes a core structure that has low index materials. A photonic crystal cladding structure utilized in guiding optical modes in the core. The photonic crystal cladding structure includes alternating layers of Si and SiN.

Silicon based on-chip photonic band gap cladding waveguide

A photonic bandgap device includes a first mirror region including alternating layers of different materials. A second mirror region includes alternating layers of different materials. An air gap cavity region is positioned between the first mirror region and second region. The air gap cavity changes its thickness when a voltage is applied so that the device is tuned to a particular resonant wavelength.

Growing community of inventors

Woodbury, MN, United States of America

Yasha Yi